History of Religion as History of the Church: Kant's Remarks on the Interpretation of Christian History

Moral philosophy of Kant assigns to religion no justificatory but only some kind of ancillary function. Religion is subordinate to ethics and supports it as in this world virtue and justice are not rewarded with happiness. Religion tells us that such concurrence will happen in after life. This basic idea that can bring ethics and religion together has gradually emerged in the history of what Kant calls the universal church. In Europe the history of religion began with Judaism. However, Jewish faith was shared by people who formed a civil association dedicated to a common law rather than a religious congregation. Judaism did not proclaim unequivocally that human soul is eternal and did not hold that man can participate in the supreme good as a result of the divinely created harmony between nature and moral obligation. These ideas emerged only later, in Christian churches, insofar as they strove to create on earth God's invisible Kingom. Kant hoped that a pure religious morality would prevail when it has been recognised that religious life consists in the faith in the trinity of God-persons interpreted according to the old Protestant creed as the summoning, redemption and elligibility.